Wednesday, April 25, 2012

This went up yesterday on BLS Advocate. However, this piece went through several drafts. The first draft was extremely inappropriate for several reasons--it is not something that I would want to attach my name to--it is one of the few times I would NOT vigorously support my own right to free speech. Thus I felt some editing was in order, and this was my second draft. My editor at BLS Advocate (who has been wonderful and who I will miss very much after this year is over--which is basically, now) thought it needed one more go through. So, draft #3 is on BLS Advocate, and draft #2 is on Flying Houses. Draft #3 is probably better but draft #2 is a more direct reflection upon the election, and so dovetails nicely with the post below. Enjoy! Or write hate mail!

By now,
the election is over. Part of me wants
to write before I know the results and part of me wants to write after I know
the results. I’m going to write now, an
hour and 13 minutes before the polls close.

I am
assuming that I am going to lose. I am
assuming that this race is nothing more than a popularity contest, and that BLS
students are generally apathetic about the SBA.
Only the SBA cares about the SBA.
The only thing that matters to the students is whether they will get
their free beer and pizza or not. Then
they turn around and say, look at the way the SBA is using their money. What a waste.

I ask a
3L to vote for me and she refuses and I say why and she says she has no stake in
this school and I say what do you mean you will be an alumni and she says I
don’t care I will never give back a dime to this school and I say why and she
asks me if I have five hours and I say sum it up in five seconds and she says
it’s a shithole. (And I will agree, that, when we don’t have wireless internet,
and we can’t enter our classes naked with a towel, it may be considered a
shithole [Ed. the latter complaint is based upon the events on April 16 and April 17, when classrooms were inexplicably hot to the point that students needed to get up and leave because they were going to sweat through their suits]).

If you
really push students to say what’s wrong with the school, AND BACK UP WHAT THEY
SAY, they generally don’t know what they’re talking about. Hearsay spreads like telephone.

The
time is now 5:01 PM and I’ve just gotten off the phone with a senior in high
school from Loomis Chaffee—my alma mater.
I told her, after an extremely long-winded monologue about my one-act
play that was banned at Loomis, the classmates at law school that I have from
Loomis, this election, and the election that took place my freshman year at Loomis,
that I would give her $20 on the condition that someone at the Loomis Chaffee
alumni relations department put me in touch with a chapter 11 attorney at a big
law firm in New York City for the purposes of an informational interview so
that I will know (since I can’t get in their doors through OCI) how I can
transition into that job in three or four years, so that I will know what I
must accomplish. I told her that if no
one ever got in touch with me, I would not donate next year.

If BLS
does the same thing, we can solve our funding problems. The school must make an effort to implement
this permanent solution to a purportedly temporary problem. If it does not, then BLS in 2015 will look
exactly the same as it looks in 2012.

Finally, let me say this: the Cubs
will not win the World Series in 2014 (or 2015 – the image from Back to the Future Part 2 is unclear) because
the Miami Marlins will not be in the American League. However, it is not for this reason that this
prediction will be inaccurate.

The prediction will be inaccurate
because the Cubs are a team that is fundamentally based upon the idea of
lovable losing and ridiculous drunken celebrations of victories that are
inconsequential in the long run, but oh so sweet in the moment. The prediction will also be inaccurate
because Theo Epstein is at the helm.
Theo Epstein is regarded as a wunderkind that will implement “moneyball,
etc.” strategies in order to win. Profits
will go up if the payroll is kept relatively low and the team is successful (though,
the Cubs will always be popular).

The Cubs are basically the same
thing as Brooklyn Law School. Except
they are a for-profit corporation.
Remember, Wrigley v. Schlensky, people?
We don’t want to put the lights on because we don’t see how that’s going
to increase our revenue.

Nicholas Allard is basically the
same thing as Theo Epstein. However, we
know less about him. Theo took the Red
Sox to their first championship in many, many years. The Cubs got Theo because they wanted him to
take them to their first championship in 106 years (most Cubs fans are in
agreement that Theo’s “system” will “pay off” in 2014). The General Manager of a baseball team is
like the Dean of a law school. You’re in
charge of building the team. The Professors
at law school are more like the coaches of the baseball team. The President of a law school is most like the
owner or controlling stockholder of the baseball team. (I am not going to follow up this sentence
with anything.)

I’ve taken this metaphor way too
far for my word limit. Thanks for your
support. Here’s hoping the world still
doesn’t suck in 2015 for the Cubs, and for BLS students.